nt was yelling on the hot scent of the
Winnipeg Wolf.
Away they went, a rabble of Dogs, a motley rout of horsemen, a mob of
men and boys on foot. Garou had no fear of the Dogs, but men he knew
had guns and were dangerous. He led off for the dark timber line of the
Assiniboine, but the horsemen had open country and they headed him
back. He coursed along the Colony Creek hollow and so eluded the
bullets already flying. He made for a barb-wire fence, and passing that
he got rid of the horsemen for a time, but still must keep the hollow
that baffled the bullets. The Dogs were now closing on him. All he
might have asked would probably have been to be left alone with
them--forty or fifty to one as they were--he would have taken the odds.
The Dogs were all around him now, but none dared to close in, A lanky
Hound, trusting to his speed, ran alongside at length and got a side
chop from Garou that laid him low. The horsemen were forced to take a
distant way around, but now the chase was toward the town, and more men
and Dogs came running out to join the fray.
The Wolf turned toward the slaughter-house, a familiar resort, and the
shooting ceased on account of the houses, as well as the Dogs, being so
near. These were indeed now close enough to encircle him and hinder all
further flight. He looked for a place to guard his rear for a final
stand, and seeing a wooden foot-bridge over a gutter he sprang in,
there faced about and held the pack at bay. The men got bars and
demolished the bridge. He leaped out, knowing now that he had to die,
but ready, wishing only to make a worthy fight, and then for the first
time in broad day view of all his foes he stood--the shadowy
Dog-killer, the disembodied voice of St. Boniface woods, the wonderful
Winnipeg Wolf.
VII
At last after three long years of fight he stood before them alone,
confronting twoscore Dogs, and men with guns to back them--but facing
them just as resolutely as I saw him that day in the wintry woods. The
same old curl was on his lips--the hard-knit flanks heaved just a
little, but his green and yellow eye glowed steadily. The Dogs closed
in, led not by the huge Huskies from the woods--they evidently knew too
much for that--but by a Bulldog from the town; there was scuffling of
many feet; a low rumbling for a time replaced the yapping of the pack;
a flashing of those red and grizzled jaws, a momentary hurl back of the
onset, and again he stood alone and braced, the
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